1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information retrieval apparatus, and in particular to an information retrieval apparatus with artificial reality (AR) where the user can select and hold capsule images that a three-dimensional image display unit displays in a three-dimensional image space with his hands so as to collate and retrieve information from a database.
2. Description of the Related Art
In this age of information, flooding, there is a great need for quickly and accurately retrieving desired information. Thus, the importance of an operation for readily retrieving a great amount of information is increasing.
Input and output (I/O) interfaces such as a keyboard, a touch panel, and a mouse for use in the conventional information retrieval apparatuses are used to input keywords and the like. With keywords being input, information is collated and retrieved in the forms of images and hard copies. Thus, thus far, only users who are accustomed to the operations of the keyboard and familiar with the relevant database system can retrieve desired information by operating the keyboard and so forth of the terminal units.
On the other hand, in the recent computer simulation field, user-friendly computer interfaces which ingeniously utilize human beings' motions and their five senses such as sight and hearing have been developed and studied. These interfaces are referred to as artificial reality.
At the present time, the artificial reality can be divided into two major categories. One is referred to as virtual reality in which a "user agent" who is an agent of the user of the interface is displayed in computer graphics images. The user can experience a world which is spread out in the computer graphics images through the "user agent."
The other category is referred to as tele-existence in which the user can operate a robot at a remote position as his agent through a manipulator. While the tele-existence focuses on operations under the real environment, the virtual reality focuses on the use of the "user agent" as an interface of the computer itself.
As an example of computer simulation tools for accomplishing the above mentioned virtual reality, a three-dimensional display unit and data gloves have been developed. The former three-dimensional display unit provides for a three-dimensional computer graphics world. A variety of three-dimensional display units have been proposed by U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,881,068, 4,853,769, 4,834,476, 4,160,973, and so forth. In the virtual reality, some three-dimensional display units utilize a mechanism where the motions of the user's hands do not intercept the images being displayed so that he can feel that he is directly handling three-dimensional images with his hands. For example, "Eyephone" which was developed by NASA and produced by VPL Research Company (United States) is a three-dimensional display unit which is in a ski goggle shape and has an LCD display device inside thereof.
On the other hand, the data gloves are input interfaces for inputting the motions of the user's hands into a computer. The data gloves are provided with magnetic sensors and optical fiber cables over the surface thereof. Thus, the user can detect and recognize the positions and motion patterns of his hands and input particular information into the computer.
As was described above, the conventional information retrieval apparatuses with a conventional keyboard and so forth were not user friendly. Even if they were user friendly, they could not be effectively operated. In addition, since retrieved information was displayed on a flat display such as a CRT (cathode ray tube) monitor, the user could not straightforwardly recognize the weighting of retrieval indexes. Further, with the flat display, another display method for displaying a plurality of screens at a time, that is, a multi-window could be used. However, as the amount of information increased, since the display screens were overlapped, the visibility deteriorated, and the correlations between each information of retrieval indexes could not be effectively displayed.
On the other hand, the virtual reality was used as a simulation tool of computer graphics. However, thus far, the virtual reality has not yet been used for designating media directly accessing a database stored in a computer with the data gloves and for performing set logical operations.
An object of the present invention is to solve the above mentioned problems involved in the related art and to provide an information retrieval apparatus with which the user can select media as indexes allocated as images in the image space with his hands, issue predetermined commands, and straightforwardly retrieve information from a database.